December 2013 Meeting Notes

The homebrew club met on the second Monday of the month as is now our custom. We discussed meeting at other breweries in the future and it was the general consensus that we will roughly meet two months in a row at Crabtree then at another brewery the third month. I am putting down a suggested schedule here and we can decide on it at the January 13th meeting to be at Crabtree.

Treehouse Winter Warmer Beer Competition

Thanks to Shawn and Ken for doing a great job of coordinating the competition! There were 17 great entries as I counted and we enjoyed every one of them! oh, and the
winner and current holder of the Traveling Trophy is Neil Fisher with his PEACH SOUR winter warmer! Congrats to Neil for a great sour.
2nd place went to Dennis/Mike with their Vanilla Coffee Stout.
3rd place went to Piper with her CARBOMB. Congrats to home brewer Piper for placing 3rd in I believe her first competition. Look out guys she is coming! I know she has a special Berlinner coming.

We hope everyone had as good a time with this competition, sampling and beer discussions. We are planning our next competition and your turn to take home the very prestigious trophy in June. More to come on that.

Treehouse-Hunters Moon Meadery Collaboration!

Jan 13th is our first of two consecutive meetings where we will be sampling the meades made by club members and Hunters Moon. This is by no means a competition but a sharing and demonstration of what can be done with mead. All of our members produced a different meade and now we will all share and discuss the attributes of the meade we produced. Everyone is encouraged to come and participate. Since there are about 18 participants we are splitting the sampling up into two months, January 13 and February 10th. Thanks in advance to Shawn and Ken will help out as usual with the tastings. At our last meeting here are the folks who volunteered to share at the January 13th meeting.

Jan 13th - 1. Dennis Swingler 2. Michael Hinton 3. Mike Lurbe 4. Brian Schmalhorst 5. Ken Kramer 6. Greg Bowdish.

That leaves about 12 members the best I can recall so check to see if you are listed correctly for Feb 10th and let me know if you want to participate in January instead or stay in February.

Feb 10th 1.Steve Skinner 2.Jeremy Fusco 3. Bob Biffle 4.Kurt Dallow 5.John Coan 6.Eric Briscoe 7.Michael Moser 8.Jeff Graber 9.Curtis Covelli 10.Alex Drayer 11.Dave McGinley 12.Brent Leffler.

For those folks interesting in entering their mead in the Mazer Cup (an international meade competition in Boulder in April) you need to enter a minimum of two (2) 12oz bottles is required and 3 bottles is better should you make it two the final judging table. The cost is minimal for homebrewers and Greg will have more info on that as the information gets released by the Mazer Cup. If I have left anything out please bring it up!

Treehouse Ale Yeast Experiment - Finished product to be shared at our March 9th meeting.

Eric Rhinesvold is organizing an amazing experiment similar to the one we did last year where everyone brewed the same ale with a different hop. This year all of the brewers will brew the same ale each using a different yeast! Eric has the recipe ready and will be sending it out soon. When the beer is finished we will share it at the March meeting and experience all of the different attributes that yeast can make! Very exciting I think. Everyone is encouraged to participate! So far brewers showing interest are Michael Hinton, Shawn Crawford, Brian Schmalhorst, Dave McGinley, Ken Kramer, Jessica Johnson, Bill Gehrman and Greg Bowdish. I love to see our new brewers stepping up and participating!! This experiment will gain you the knowledge about all of these yeasts in one month that otherwise would have taken you years brewing by yourself. This is a big advantage of being in the club and again I encourage as many of us as possible to participate.

Brews Cruise - There has been interest is doing a Brews Cruise in February. Possible Saturdays are Feb 8th, 15th or 22nd. The proposed area will be a secret! So please contact me if you are interested. It has cost about $20 in the past and if have 16-22 brewers I expect that will be the same. On a brews Cruise we will go to four different breweries and usually get a tour of the brewery and then do some sampling of their fare. Breweries typically give homebrew clubs special attention and discounts on beer and stuff. They are always a great time if you ask anyone who has gone before. In the past we have gone to Ft Collins, Loveland and Boulder. And now if your still reading this we are planning to Cruise to Denver on the Northern Colorado Party Bus. We can discuss what breweries we want to go to with those interested in going. So let me know ASAP on which Sat in Feb will work for you. Once we have a list of those wanting to go and a date we can reserve the Party Bus!

Patricks Craft Beer Club

Monday, Dec 16th at 7PM Neil Fisher hosts the Craft Beer Club get together. Meet at Patricks Irish Pub for very interesting discussions and education about craft beer and do some sampling. This 'meeting' is open to anyone and Kyle owner and brewer from Wiley Roots Brewery will be there to discuss Strong Ales. This is also very affordable a s a sampler will be available for $3.

Proposed Treehouse meeting schedule for the first 6 months of 2014: we would like to finalize this schedule at our January meeting.

- Jan 13th - Crabtree-(Meade sharing) (presentation?)
- Feb 10th - Broken Plow Brewery-(Meade sharing) (presentation?)
- March 10th - Hunters Moon Meadery-(Yeast Experiment sharing) (presentation?)
- April 14th - Crabtree (presentation?)
- May 12th - Crabtree (presentation?)
- June 9th - Wiley Roots Brewery (Session Beer Competition) (presentation?)

The club wants to have an educational element at every meeting. Presenting has been a great way for me to gain knowledge by doing the research to give a short presentation. You certainly do not have to be an expert on the topic. I think more importantly it should be a topic you want to learn more about! The club can support you with getting what you need to prepare for a short presentation and all of our brewers are always glad to here new information and discuss it!

It has been suggested that we have a presentation on hydrometers, refractometers and maybe alcholmeters. Anyone interested on doing this or joining with me on it please help me! If you would like to give a short presentation on any brewing or any Craft Beer topic please get with me.

In conclusions officer elections are coming up in Jan or Feb as well as annual dues of $20 is collected at the same time. So bring your cash!

Hope to see you at Patricks otherwise Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to everyone.